The Nightmare Scenario: Entire Boeing 737 fleet grounded in 1996

[Æsir]

I'm back, sort of. Assuming any of you remember me.

Anyway; a week or two ago, I ended up watching an episode of the documentary series Mayday (also known as Air Crash Investigation, Air Emergency, or Air Disasters), and this seemed like an intriguing What If topic.

On June 9th, 1996, a Boeing 737-200 with 53 passengers and crew onboard, belonging to now defunct Eastwind Airlines, twice suffered a severe, un-commanded movement of the rudder on approach to Richmond International Airport. Despite the troubles, the pilot was able to land safely. During the 1990s, a serious of bizarre incidents had occurred on 737 aircraft, involving strange rudder movements; on March 3rd, 1991, United Airlines 585 crashed in Denver with the loss of all 25 aboard, and on September 8th, 1994, USAir 427 crashed in Pittsburgh killing 132.

The testimony of the pilot and an examination of the aircraft ultimately helped lead investigators to solve the cause of the 1991 and 1994 crashes as well; a small piece of the hydraulic system controlling the tail (the dual servo valve in the power control unit), could, if it became extremely cold and was subsequently filled with hot hydraulic fluid, experience thermal shock, jam, and ultimately reverse.

According to the documentary, after the USAir 427 investigation started turning up dead ends, the (IIRC) lead investigator, Tom Haueter, became particularly frustrated and there was a real fear that a third unexplained crash would result in the fleet being grounded. Haueter at one point had a nightmare; a third crash had occurred and he was subsequently being grilled by a congressional panel. The question he got asked was "Why didn't you ground the fleet?".

So, we'll posit that the rudder reversal/hardover suffered by Eastwind 517 does not correct itself. Captain Brian Bishop is unable to regain control and the aircraft spirals into the ground, killing all 53 onboard. The plane's flightpath took it over a residential area, so it's possible there are additional casualties on the ground.

More than 200 people have now been killed in three separate, eerily similar, and unexplained accidents on what was even then the best selling jetliner of all time, with, in August 1996, 2,571 in airline service and 390 more on order (full figures can be found here and here). Southwest Airlines alone had 237 (and as today, they make up it's entire fleet).

What happens from here? Obviously, the effect would be severe (especially for Boeing and for then major 737 operators like British Airways, Continental, Lufthansa, Southwest, and United, while sparing larger Airbus and McDonnell Douglas operators like Alitalia, American Airlines, Northwest, and SAS), but I'm not sure how severe or what, precisely the effects would be. Is there a possibility the fleet isn't grounded? (part of me wants to say hell no, but part of me wants to say nothing is impossible, especially when money's on the line) How badly hit is Boeing? What does this do to the merger of Boeing and McDonnell Douglas, which IOTL was announced in December of that year? (I'm skeptical they could survive with this late a POD, and conversely far more skeptical Boeing even comes close to collapsing, but I'm not very well versed in what the reality on the ground was at the time )

Fokker had went bankrupt earlier in the year and Bombardier had considered buying their 70/100 program but broke negotiations in February. Is there time left for Bombardier to go back to this, and would they consider it if Boeing looks like it might be vulnerable? Any notable orders around this time that could've gone differently? Do airlines take another look at the MD-95? (the airplane which became the very good, but not breakout successful, Boeing 717)

And one last big question I can think of; as big as a 737 grounding would be, am I overblowing this by talking about big, long-term visible effects on airlines and manufacturers?

 

[TheMann]

Long Term: Boeing quickly redesigns the parts in question and 737 production goes back to normal in a year tops, probably less. As far as damage to the company's reputation, they had had far more ghastly accidents caused by mistakes before - remember that a case of them not properly repairing a Japan Air Lines 747 wound up causing over 500 lost lives, and that hardly made a dent in them. It would probably be a help to Airbus' efforts to sell A320s, but it won't save Fokker and won't give Bombardier a big spot. They could buy the Fokker 100 and make it, but Boeing's immense commercial power is such that once the 737's capabilities are back to normal, they will still hell in huge numbers. It would do next to nothing to help McDonnell Douglas and the 717 still would go nowhere.

Short term: Many of the carriers which have fleets made up mostly or entirely of 737s, such as Southwest, WestJet and Ryanair are in catastrophic trouble as long as their planes are on the ground. Southwest would argue like hell (and quite possibly bribe people) to get its planes into the air safety concerns be damned, because otherwise it would go bust in weeks. America's air transport system hits a nightmare capacity crunch immediately, causing people to scramble to get alternate arrangements. Every operator of rivals would see planes filled to capacity, and all kinds of aircraft still available would be called into domestic action if at all possible. It's perhaps not all that good of a use of the airplanes, but I'd expect the smaller airports to get the flights using smaller airplanes (727s, A320s, Fokker 100s, DC-9s and MD-80 series, prop birds such as Bombardier Dash-8s and probably even exotic stuff like BAe 146s), while big airports get big planes on domestic routes and flights are merged to allow the big birds to be used to capacity. Lots of 747s, DC-10s, MD-11s, A330s and L-1011s are used for short-haul flights, packed to capacity.

Amtrak sees a massive surge in demand, particularly for shorter routes between cities. Their northeast corridor is soon crazy busy, and its long-distance routes which hit multiple cities in the Northeast and Midwest, such as the Capitol Limited, Cardinal, Silver Star and Lake Shore Limited probably see a lot of people going for city-to-city routes, and some of the lesser-known routes such as the Wolverine, Texas Eagle, Heartland Flyer, River Runner and Piedmont would probably get considerable boosts. Whether this becomes a long-term help for Amtrak depends on how well they do with the sudden track boost and what the politics of it are.

 

[Delta Force]

McDonnell Douglas might pick up more orders for its MD-95 line. For the first 2 years of the program the only order on the books was a 50 plane order from Valujet. The MD-90 line has already been running for a few years in 1996 and there were probably several production slots open. Since DC-9s and MD-80s will have to make up for most of the capacity shortfall left by a Boeing 737 grounding and the mid-1990s were a crucial period for replacing those aircraft (the 737 Next Generation entered service in the late 1990s) some carriers may decide to stick with McDonnell Douglas or purchase a few aircraft for short term needs or to provide greater fleet redundancy.

Going forward you might see airlines move away from the single aircraft/engine family model of operations. Having greater efficiency doesn't do a company much good if its only aircraft or engine family is grounded. Militaries have historically had such approaches, a legacy of which can be seen in the now defunct F-35 backup engine program.

 

[Æsir]

Short term: Many of the carriers which have fleets made up mostly or entirely of 737s, such as Southwest, WestJet and Ryanair are in catastrophic trouble as long as their planes are on the ground.

At this point, EasyJet (then using 737s operated by GB Airways or Air Foyle), Ryanair, and Westjet are all small companies trying to adapt the Southwest business model. With the 737 grounded (potentially for some time, depending on how long it takes to discover the cause of the problems) perhaps one or more of them are strangled in the cradle?

It's worth pointing out here that WestJet survived a two-week grounding in September 1996 IOTL, over a dispute between them and the Canadian government over maintenance schedules, so to sink them this posited 737 grounding would likely have to be significantly longer.

I'm sure the cause still gets found, of course; while the testimony of Captain Bishop reenforced the focus on the rudder problems as a probable cause, the smoking gun came from a friend of one of the investigators bringing up a "torture test" he had heard of in the Air Force to recreate thermal shock, which was then carried out using the dual servo valve from, IIRC, the USAir 427 aircraft, which demonstrated 1. that the servo could in fact jam, and 2. that a Boeing engineer looked at the data and realized it could actually reverse. But I don't know how long it takes.

Amtrak sees a massive surge in demand, particularly for shorter routes between cities. Their northeast corridor is soon crazy busy, and its long-distance routes which hit multiple cities in the Northeast and Midwest, such as the Capitol Limited, Cardinal, Silver Star and Lake Shore Limited probably see a lot of people going for city-to-city routes, and some of the lesser-known routes such as the Wolverine, Texas Eagle, Heartland Flyer, River Runner and Piedmont would probably get considerable boosts. Whether this becomes a long-term help for Amtrak depends on how well they do with the sudden track boost and what the politics of it are.

Good point about increased rail traffic. Maybe an impetus for extension of railway electrification in the northeast, for example the rest of the OTL Northeast Regional system south from Washington into Virginia and north from New Haven to Springfield and/or the Keystone Corridor all the way to Pittsburgh? With Southwest in trouble, perhaps the Texas TGV proposal gets revisited in a bigger way?

Anyway, building on what Delta Force said, let's look at orders again. First off, in November 1996 American Airlines signed an exclusivity agreement with Boeing, and the next year Continental and Delta followed suit. These were ruled to be unenforceable due to Boeing swallowing up McDonnell Douglas but IIRC were followed as gentlemen's agreements. Do they still get signed? On that note, I realize that it's almost certainly too late for MD to end up much differently, but what stage were talks with Boeing at at this point? Is there any possibility of a different suitor?

Looking at some major 737 orders that were on the books in '96 and '97 and could've gone the other way (from the 1997 World Airliners Census, relevant pages here and here);

Apparently USAir had 40 737-300s on order in 1997, which seems odd as the type was being phased out and US had a falling out with Boeing over Flight 427 and a war of words between Boeing and the pilot's union over who was at fault during the investigation. Maybe these were second-hand planes?

Scandinavian Airlines, a longtime core Douglas customer (already having switched to Boeing for long-haul, although the 767 order was partly due to it being available quickly), selected the 737-600 over the MD-95 for their 100-seat class aircraft in March 1995, and had 41 on order in 1996 and 1997. Probably too far along to back out of this order, whatever second thoughts the airline might have.

Continental, between the 1996 and 1997 reports, had expanded an order for 48 737NGs to 78 737NGs, split between 30 -600s, 26 -700s, and 22 -800s. Continental is already a major DC-9/MD-80 operator and a mix of MD-90 and MD-95 aircraft likely could've filled the same niche as a mix of -600/-700/-800 model 737s. Again though, this may be too far along to change.

Delta placed an order for 70 737-800s. Delta already has a huge fleet of Douglas twinjets and has MD-90s on order; they may consider buying more MD-90s instead of the -800. Delta buying the A320 seems unlikely; while initially they liked the A310s they got from Pan Am, enough to buy more from Airbus, they retired them early and didn't buy from Airbus again until this year, after already absorbing a large Airbus fleet from Northwest.

American Airlines ordered 75 737-800s and was another large MD-80 operator. Up until signing an exclusivity deal with Boeing they seem to have been happy to buy from everyone and play manufacturers off each other; they also operated the BAC 1-11, Convair 990, and Fokker 100 for a time (although the former two were ancient history by this point). They may have sprung for the MD-90 instead. They also operated the Airbus A300, but opinions seem to be conflicting on if they liked them or not even before the Flight 587 disaster. An outside A320 possibility?

Southwest already had their 737NGs on order in 1996 and are one of Boeing's best customers, but they'll be badly burned by a 737 grounding. Perhaps they do the unthinkable and take a look at the A320, or at least take a second look at another Boeing product, such as the 757-200 which I think they may have considered IOTL?

 

[Demon-Something]

If a 737 grounding happens, it might be seen as the DC-10 of the 90's. Boeing might just use the MD-90/MD-95 program and quietly discontinue the 737NG

Also, if EasyJet/Ryanair go under during a protracted grounding, the butterflies shouldn't be too immense; another Southwest clone will take off in its stead. This was a segment of the market that could not be ignored.

I wouldn't bank on an increase in train travel. Amtrak likely won't even enter the minds of American travelers, and driving is likely faster or no slower in many cases.

 

[Æsir]

If a 737 grounding happens, it might be seen as the DC-10 of the 90's. Boeing might just use the MD-90/MD-95 program and quietly discontinue the 737NG.

I'm not sure Boeing would replace the 737 wholesale with a Douglas-based platform, although maybe it prompts them to look at a clean sheet replacement earlier on.

Also, if EasyJet/Ryanair go under during a protracted grounding, the butterflies shouldn't be too immense; another Southwest clone will take off in its stead. This was a segment of the market that could not be ignored.

Yeah, something is going to take their place, even if the companies themselves don't make it out of a 737 grounding crisis.

I wouldn't bank on an increase in train travel. Amtrak likely won't even enter the minds of American travelers, and driving is likely faster or no slower in many cases.

Not necessarily on, for example, transcontinental runs, but rail is already a strong competitive option in the northeast and the Northeast Corridor improvement program which lead to the Acela Express is already well underway. I think it would likely eat into air travel around the edges there and possibly in other densely populated areas of the country such as California, Florida, the Great Lakes coast, the Piedmont region, and (albeit less likely) the Texas Triangle.

 

[Apollo 20]

This wouldn't be as bad as it first seems. First, a grounding would only involve the 737-300 and 737-400; IIRC, the rudder servo assembly was unique to that line of aircraft and there was no need to ground the -200s. Airline fleets in the mid 90s still had a lot of -200s floating around. Bear in mind here that there were still DC9-10/30/40/50 aircraft active in airline fleets and the 727 hadn't yet been phased out. Also, there were a lot of airplanes that had been parked in the desert (older 737-200s and 727s) that could, in a pinch, be pressed into service.

Long-haul services would be unaffected as the 737 is not run on such routes. The carriers that would be adversely affected would be those with large -300 and -400 fleets; USAir comes to mind first as do United and Continental. Southwest would also be affected, but they were still running a lot of -200s back then. Among US carriers, TWA, Delta, American and Northwest would be completely unaffected by a grounding as they operated no -300 or -400 model 737s. A butterfly here might be the survival of TWA as an independent carrier...

 

[Æsir]

This wouldn't be as bad as it first seems. First, a grounding would only involve the 737-300 and 737-400; IIRC, the rudder servo assembly was unique to that line of aircraft and there was no need to ground the -200s. Airline fleets in the mid 90s still had a lot of -200s floating around. Bear in mind here that there were still DC9-10/30/40/50 aircraft active in airline fleets and the 727 hadn't yet been phased out. Also, there were a lot of airplanes that had been parked in the desert (older 737-200s and 727s) that could, in a pinch, be pressed into service.

Both United Flight 585 and Eastwind Flight 517 were on 737-200s and were attributed to the same rudder problem after the fact (although there is at least some lingering disagreement over the cause of the whole series of incidents, to be fair; Jeff Nielsen, of Airline Pilot Guy podcast fame and also a Delta captain and trained accident investigator IIRC is skeptical, for what that's worth... maybe not much). In addition, being that the 737-500 was, I think, a simple shrink of the -300, I assume if the -300/-400 were grounded it would probably be as well.

Long-haul services would be unaffected as the 737 is not run on such routes.

Long haul flights could potentially be hit, as a knock-on effect if widebody aircraft need to be pressed into domestic service.

Among US carriers, TWA, Delta, American and Northwest would be completely unaffected by a grounding as they operated no -300 or -400 model 737s. A butterfly here might be the survival of TWA as an independent carrier...

At this point TWA was essentially a zombie though IIRC.

On that note though, I should really go sift through the airliner census tables and tally up what the fleets of, at least, the major North American carriers consisted of at the time.

 

[Delta Force]

Apparently the Boeing 737 is the largest commercial aircraft still in production in which you can fly without hydraulics. The rudder is the only control surface that actually requires hydraulics to function. I know it is intended as a last ditch emergency measure, but if the issue were with another control surface would it be physically and legally possible to fly with the hydraulics disabled?

 

[TheMann]

Good point about increased rail traffic. Maybe an impetus for extension of railway electrification in the northeast, for example the rest of the OTL Northeast Regional system south from Washington into Virginia and north from New Haven to Springfield and/or the Keystone Corridor all the way to Pittsburgh? With Southwest in trouble, perhaps the Texas TGV proposal gets revisited in a bigger way?

The Northeast Regional IMO should be extended to Norfolk and Richmond in any case, but that aside, this would be a short-term boost, albeit probably quite a big one, and it would make people remember that airplanes are not the only way to get between cities. Amtrak would have to really make a point about its abilities here....but in 1996 they were in a pretty decent position to do that, as they still had most of their heritage fleet on hand. Remember that Amtrak had a massive rise in ridership after 9/11, and while that was a short-term kick in ridership, such a situation would have the ability, if well-managed, to show that trains can get you where you need to go.

If bigger funds are available in the second half of the 1990s as a result, the first order of business is rebuilding the NEC tracks north of New York and its power system south of New York. Between New York and Boston speeds are limited because of track curvature, south of it the overhead wires are not constant tension cantenary which limits speeds. Get both both done and make the trains able to run at their speed capabilities for greater sections of the line. Expanding to from Washington to Norfolk, Philadelphia to Pittsburgh via Reading and Harrisburg and from New Haven to Springfield via Hartford are good ideas but would probably be better done with Northeast Regional equipment, but if the tracks are separated this is not an issue. Remember that rules regarding higher-speed passenger trains and freights on the NEC were significantly tightened in 1987 (caused by a drunken Conrail engineer who caused a wreck which killed 16 people), so the route from Philadelphia to Pittsburgh would have to be set up either alongside a freight line or in place of it. Conrail's Harrisburg line would be the best bet (and it was still government-owned in 1996), though between Harrisburg, Altoona and Johnstown its not an easy route. Mind you, Conrail studied electrifying it in the 1970s, so the studies do exist.

The Texas TGV proposal died on the table because Southwest effectively created opposition to it, and companies that had interests in greater interstate highway usage jumped in it while the consortium had difficulty finding the funds for it. In the aftermath of this, get a couple of Southwest's rivals on board and get the cash together, and get Texas to renew the franchise. Result is that planning begins in 1997-98, construction in 2000 and operational service in 2007 or 2008. The Texas TGV would have probably used similar equipment to the Acela (Morrison Knudson, Alstom and Bombardier were key players in both projects), and so once running reliability is not an issue.

I wouldn't bank on an increase in train travel. Amtrak likely won't even enter the minds of American travelers, and driving is likely faster or no slower in many cases.

I don't know about that. Remember that with 737s grounded a huge portion of the airliner fleets available to American airlines would be grounded, and since by this point the capacity factor of most airlines was over 80%, you end up with a nasty capacity crunch, and Amtrak would know it and know it would have an opportunity to get into the gap. Outside of the Northeast Corridor, Amtrak has several well-patronized city-to-city runs such as the Wolverine, River Runner and San Joaquins, and I don't think its mad to think of the possibilities. It won't mean demands for a ShinKansen overnight, but Amtrak would have better ridership and thus almost certainly have more political pull.